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Here'sa mesmerizing GIFof former Portland Trail Blazers and Class of 2011 Naismith Hall of Fame inductee Arvydas Sabonis doing a goofy dance much to the amusement ofNBA Inside StuffhostAhmad Rashad. Circa mid-1990s. -- Ben Golliver | benjamin.golliver@gmail.com |Twitter

Mike PradaofSBNation.compulled togethera lengthy transcriptof the most important comments made by NBA commissioner David Stern in aB.S. Reportpodcast interview withBill Simmons. ---------------------------------- On his urgency to get a deal done: "I would say that I remain optimistic that we're going to make a deal, and I think that the urgency is set in a certain way by the rejection of our underlying premise. That is, this is the time to have a reset. This is the time to try to hold for the players most of what they have, and grow our way out of the situation we find ourselves in. The players very strongly disagree and to this point don't even want to discuss it." On the owners' reception to revenue sharing: "There is going to be a revenue sharing. I must tell you that our owners ... they're on board. The Bulls, the Lakers, the Knicks. ... I've never seen such unity of purpose amongst our owners. Yes, we need a new CBA, and we have to accompany it with more robust revenue sharing." ---------------------------------- Listen to the audiohere. -- Ben Golliver | benjamin.golliver@gmail.com |Twitter

Chris HaynesofProBasketballNews.com reportsthat Portland Trail Blazers guard Wesley Matthews -- through his agent, Lance Young -- is considering the overseas option should the ongoing NBA lockout bleed over into a work stoppage. ----------------------- "I’m looking into different policies and products for insurance purposes to see how we can cover him if he does play in Europe," said Young, who reps for Octagon."If it looks like it’s going to be a long lockout, he’s going to play overseas." "He just loves to play," Young told PBN. "We have to find a team in Europe in a good situation, with good money, and who’s going to give him a NBA out. That’s going to be the challenging part." ----------------------- Haynes reports that Matthews, whowore a boot and underwent PRP therapy on his injured anklethis summer, is said by Young to be "85 to 90 percent" recovered. Unlike with forward Nicolas Batum, who wasintroduced by SLUC Nancy of Franceyesterday, a Matthews flight abroad would probably cause a fair bit of indigestion over at One Center Court given his salary situation and the fact that he has yet to recover from a debilitating injury. -- Ben Golliver | benjamin.golliver@gmail.com |Twitter

Here'san interesting exercisefromBasketball Prospectus' Kevin Pelton. As we all know former Portland Trail Blazers center Arvydas Sabonis didn't come over to the NBA until very late in his career. Pelton uses Sabonis' 31 year old rookie season as the starting point to compare him to other players from their 31 year old seasons and on. The results with these time constraints? Sabonis is the 26th best player in modern NBA history (dating back to 1980). Blazers center Marcus Camby, former Blazers forward Scottie Pippen and former Blazers guard Clyde Drexler appear above him on the list. To really underscore his place in history note that 22 or 23 of the 25 names above him are current or future Hall of Famers. The conclusion: even in a diminished form and way late to the party, Sabonis' numbers show he could play with the NBA's best. -- Ben Golliver | benjamin.golliver@gmail.com |Twitter

BallinEurope.comhas an exceptionalcareer retrospective-- with tons of video -- of former Portland Trail Blazers center Arvydas Sabonis, who will be inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame tonight. A great way to kill your Friday at work.ed: bumped to front page

Here are David Stern's comments on Aug 11th: "I would say that we have very smart players who recognize that this system is very good to them,'' David Stern said. "You've got 13 players on a roster averaging $5 million apiece, that’s $65 million and what the owners have said is, ‘we’re going to try very hard as we reset this thing to keep you as close to that number as we can.’ "The NFL, which is usually profitable as opposed to the NBA, which isn’t, got the double-digit [revenue] reductions from their players... I expect that we’ll make a deal because the alternative is very destructive," he said. "It’s destructive of $2 billion worth of player salaries and it’s destructive most important to our fans of the game. And if it spirals badly everyone gets hurt. But in some ways I worry because the players have more to lose, especially those in the later stages of their career. So we’re going to do do everything we can when the rhetoric slows down to get this thing back on track... Eventually we’ll get it done. I will not set a deadline on Aug. 11.We're close to two months away." Via RealGM and Boston.com

波特兰开拓者前锋尼古拉斯-巴图姆up his new jersey for French Club SLUC Nancy during an introductory press conference on Thursday. Player and clubreached agreementon a one-year deal earlier this month. "Just met all the people and the staff in Nancy," Batum wroteon Twitteron Wednesday. "Very nice people so happy to be here." Image viathis videoposted onlequipe.fr. -- Ben Golliver | benjamin.golliver@gmail.com |Twitter

Jack McCallumofSI.com remembersthat former Portland Trail Blazers center Arvydas Sabonis, who is being inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame on Friday, was larger than life off the court as well. ---------------------- Eventually, he developed more than a passing relationship with a bottle of vodka, a condition that one-time SI writer Curry Kirkpatrick memorably labeled as "Stolichnaya elbow." That sounds like the most groaningly obvious stereotype, the stolid Eastern Bloc-er pickling himself with the national drink, but that doesn't mean it isn't true. I heard the same priceless Sabonis/vodka story from both Marciulionis and Dallas Mavericks general manager Donnie Nelson, who was an assistant coach on the Lithuanian team that won a bronze medal at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. After the Lithuanians defeated the Unified team for the bronze -- a victory fraught with meaning since the Unifieds represented, to the Lithuanians, the very Soviet empire against which they had fought for their independence -- the closing ceremonies were still hours away. "That's far too much time for a Lithuanian," Nelson told me, smiling. Sabonis drank so prodigiously in his postgame celebration that he was unable to roust himself for the appearance on the medal stand and was later found spreading his own version of Glasnost in the dorm of the Russian women's Olympic team. ---------------------- -- Ben Golliver | benjamin.golliver@gmail.com |Twitter